The Daily Show: Fetal-mania

Wednesday

May 27, 2009 at 12:01 AMMay 28, 2009 at 2:47 AM

After washing the Arizona State stink off himself, President Obama spoke at the May 17 commencement ceremony at Notre Dame. Of course, Notre Dame is the home of the Fighting Irish - perhaps the most redundant mascot in the history of college athletics.

After washing the Arizona State stink off himself, President Obama spoke at the May 17 commencement ceremony at Notre Dame. Of course, Notre Dame is the home of the Fighting Irish - perhaps the most redundant mascot in the history of college athletics.

With the president speaking there, the university must have been psyched with a capital P.

Actually, not so much.

"Demonstrators are angry that one of America's foremost Catholic institutions is welcoming a pro-abortion president to be its commencement speaker and get an honorary degree," Fox News reported.

I don't know if the phrase "pro-abortion" is necessarily fair. He's more of ... wait, why am I arguing with Fox? God, they got me again!

Outraged conservatives flooded the campus to protest, and Obama was met with boos. But heckling wasn't the only form of protest. Randall Terry, founder of anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, ran a more creative demonstration.

What a clever and symbolic demonstration of the beauty and simplicity of life.

"In the strollers were baby dolls covered with stage blood and an Obama bumper sticker saying, 'Obama '09: One dead baby at a time,' " he continued.

I don't get it. Why are the blood-covered babies supporting Obama? Wouldn't they have a McCain bumper sticker on their strollers?

I'd like to take a moment to address those who may need a nuanced breakdown of this Notre Dame situation. I'm speaking, of course, to our future alien overlords.

If you're an alien and you're about to come down to our planet, and you see all this fuss over a Catholic school having a pro-choice speaker, you might think Notre Dame is some kind of cloistered theological seminary.

It's not. It's a college. It's a good college, but it's not in Vatican City. It's in the Bowl Championship Series. The Pope is not their symbol, the Heisman Trophy is.

That's not to say genuine miracles don't happen at Notre Dame. Once there was this young man who, lacking any physical prowess and standing all of maybe five feet tall and weighing 100 and nothing, walked on the school's famed football team for 10 whole seconds in the last game of his career. His name, and I'll never forget it as long as I live, is ... Randy? Trent?

Future alien overlords, I hope that clears things up for you.

In the end, it all came down to Obama's speech being portrayed as pro-infanticide, evil incarnate and even liberal. I assumed his speech would be some version of the "everyone deserves to have unprotected consequence-free sex at any age."

Here's an excerpt: "I do not suggest the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away ... let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions, let's reduce unintended pregnancies, let's make adoption more available," Obama said.

"Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction, but surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricatures."